[WIP] S.U.P.E.R Natural: Demo Updated

[idGamer]

So, I started playing through the demo on a much more powerful system, and the experience is so far much more enjoyable. Finding totally new areas that I hadn't seen in my previous playthrough showed me just how big the levels are.

Also, some monsters actually spawned this time. And they make the experience much more terrifying. I must've just gotten a randomly sparse run on my first playthrough.

[agaures]

So i have looked around every inch of every map i have encountered so far, found some new stuff, but not the sewer secret. Someone tell me!!!

[Ed the Bat]

Finding it involves doing something that would ordinarily seem really stupid.

[agaures]

Finding it involves doing something that would ordinarily seem really stupid.

On what level of stupid are we talking here?

Edit:

---

Do i have to walk into that red eyed thing?

[Ed the Bat]

Suicidally. As in, the kind of thing they call in police negotiators for.

---

It's something that should break your legs, if not every bone in your body.

[agaures]

---

I am not intelligent enough for these hints. I can't find a place to break my legs that pyro hasn't already blocked off.

[Jblade]

I've PMed you, I kinda of stumbled into the secret by accident so don't worry I wasn't too good with clues either.

[BlueInferno]

Played it and completed it. The most immersive design I felt in a really long time.

The whole road and car disappering reminded me of all those nightmares being lost and my road being replaced by woods aways plaged me when I was about seven years old. So that made me excited and creeped out, and I was just waiting for something to happen. The tourches going out insured that, something is probably waiting for me..

Saw that mouth for a face thing and ran past him and made a break for it in the base. And.. a force feild was blocking the swich traped and skrewed. Hits me and disappiers. Now in the base as a ball of nerves looking in every spot that I can see in the thick darkness for those things, my objectives told me to restore the power to the base.

With out spoiling more, I really enjoyed just walking around staying out of sight, the radio tower is the best tech base design I ever seen! The lighting was just used so well there.

The only issue I had, I have an amd radeon hd 7660g gpu on my laptop and the frame rate was bad in the larger areas. My desktop has a nvidia geforce ti 4200 is way too slow and old. But I was still able to play it despite that.

Good work, you are just a detail monster!

[Pyroscourge]

So I've been thinking about the major issues that have been highlighted from everyone's comments, and the one major thing which is killing fun is the lack of a map. I've put some thought into it and have come up with a solution which isn't too complex and should work quite well with the current system.

Instead of the world map popping up when you open the map, I'll have the regular map come up instead. It will be fade-in black bordered, to cover up the monster count and secret count as they are irrelevant, but otherwise still work like the regular procedural map you have in Doom. Additionally, I'll give the player a form of map marker (glow sticks sounded like a cool idea), which they can place by using it from inside their inventory section, and it will show up in game as something (e.g. glow stick) and as a marker on the map. Assuming I can figure out how to do all that, it should pretty much solve any issues of getting lost.

The world map will either get it's own section in the journal or be put in the Inventory.

Additionally, I am going to make a Normal Mode and a Hard Mode selectable from the main menu. Hard mode will remove these map markers and the map in general, in case people want a challenge. Maybe it will do more as well, like increase spawn rates, but that is up for debate.

One thing I am unsure of is whether or not to make the procedural map simplistic, or normal. If it's simplistic, you would just be able to see the basic shapes of rooms through careful use of the hidden line flag. If normal, it work like regular, where you can see all features of the room you're in, but still hiding secrets and such with the hidden line flag.

Any opinions on any of this would be most welcome.

[idGamer]

So I've been thinking about the major issues that have been highlighted from everyone's comments, and the one major thing which is killing fun is the lack of a map. I've put some thought into it and have come up with a solution which isn't too complex and should work quite well with the current system.

Instead of the world map popping up when you open the map, I'll have the regular map come up instead. It will be fade-in black bordered, to cover up the monster count and secret count as they are irrelevant, but otherwise still work like the regular procedural map you have in Doom. Additionally, I'll give the player a form of map marker (glow sticks sounded like a cool idea), which they can place by using it from inside their inventory section, and it will show up in game as something (e.g. glow stick) and as a marker on the map. Assuming I can figure out how to do all that, it should pretty much solve any issues of getting lost.

The world map will either get it's own section in the journal or be put in the Inventory.

Additionally, I am going to make a Normal Mode and a Hard Mode selectable from the main menu. Hard mode will remove these map markers and the map in general, in case people want a challenge. Maybe it will do more as well, like increase spawn rates, but that is up for debate.

One thing I am unsure of is whether or not to make the procedural map simplistic, or normal. If it's simplistic, you would just be able to see the basic shapes of rooms through careful use of the hidden line flag. If normal, it work like regular, where you can see all features of the room you're in, but still hiding secrets and such with the hidden line flag.

Any opinions on any of this would be most welcome.

Your solution to the map sounds good. I kind of feel like Hard Mode should only remove the map, and not mess with the spawn rates, though.
OR you could have the map option be a separate choice than the difficulty setting (something like Cold as Hell did).

[Ed the Bat]

I would suggest making things like the map a CVAR so the user can toggle it from the menu without having to start a new game. For that matter, I think the reflective surfaces toggle should be moved there, instead of a keybind.

[Mav3rick]

Will you add some kind of display info in the top uper part of the screen with the name of the place, kind like doom 3 have but in the lower part of the screen?
in the lake i found sooooo many places and since you will be adding the map, maybe the map will have some kind of mark that will tell the name of the places you have already visit, for no be running around too much.

And besed of all those places i found on the lake the proyect will be some kind of intermision quest like queake 2? since i got to the abandoned cabin and i saw a key card maybe later will have to run all the way back there to get it

lol

---

oh another thing in the antena map, why i get soo huge lag for watching the sky??

[idGamer]

Finished it just now; I can say that I enjoyed it much more on a better system.
I'm excited to see the future release, and still wonder what other interesting little notes there are I didn't find scattered throughout the huge levels.

Also, the duck notes are creepy. I was so intrigued by the first and the last one that I found, I spent about eight minutes scouring the lake for the second one, but to no avail.

[Jblade]

One thing I am unsure of is whether or not to make the procedural map simplistic, or normal. If it's simplistic, you would just be able to see the basic shapes of rooms through careful use of the hidden line flag. If normal, it work like regular, where you can see all features of the room you're in, but still hiding secrets and such with the hidden line flag.

I think the former would be more useful, but that sounds like an insane amount of work to do with how detailed the maps are so I'd just stick with normal for the time being. I'm liking the idea of Hard mode in anycase, I'm fairly good at navigating places so I'd be up for that challenge.

EDIT: also about the sewers:

---

It definitly 100% needs some waypoints, because navigating this thing without a map unlike the other places is fairly impossible due to it's immense size and similarity. Either that or colour code sections by lighting or something....maybe have 4 'quadrants' with RGBY lighting and a primitive sewer map at junctions and stuff? Whilst it IS spooky, I'm not the only one who got hopelessly lost down there.

[Espilonarge]

Played the demo and if there's one thing that desperately needs fixing... it's that head-bobbing camera that's going up and down too much (it also looks unnatural for "human" movement). It's causing motion sickness for me.